This week’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was spent exploring the big reveal that Andrew Garner is in fact an Inhuman and is the villainous creature Lash that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been going after.
I’m honestly very mixed about “Chaos Theory,” mostly because it’s hard to know how to feel regarding this twist behind Lash’s identity. On the one hand, it presents itself as a compelling arc for May because she now has to struggle with this situation that involves the person she loves the most because as you may know: it’s really difficult cracking her personal shield. However, for some reason this take on Lash and have it be one of the allies, just doesn’t sit well as a storyline.
It feels right now that Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D. has way too many villains to face, which is obviously part of the season three challenge: how do we increase the stakes and change the game? It was great seeing the flashbacks to when Andrew went through Terrigenesis and having it tied back with Jiaying. For the people who wanted to see The Hulk on this show back in season one: Lash is the next best thing. It might be too early to judge whether this is going to turn out to be a good or bad story element. But seeing May really struggling and having to face tough decisions, gave us some of Ming-Na Wen’s finest performances in the series.
Fitz and Simmons killed me emotionally from start to finish as Fitz restores the material that Simmons got on her phone while being gone in the other world. “Chaos Theory” really makes you nostalgic over the evolution of both these characters separately and as a duo, from the very beginning. I never imagined when first getting introduced to these two in the pilot that they would undergo such a massive transformation three-four seasons later. But that’s something to appreciate because while they might be the witty, geeky science duo, they do have now this layer of feeling like serious characters too and just comic relief.
On the subject of many villains this season, we learn something big about Rosalind who hasn’t really interested me too much since her introduction. She is playing Coulson big time as she is Team Hydra and been working as a double-agent. While I don’t want it to be too easy, I really hope that in the spirit of Coulson as a character, that he figures it out quickly rather than being fooled for God knows how many episodes.
Overall, “Chaos Theory” had its up and down as it was an incredibly well and emotionally-charged episode. But at the same time, it presented the fact that there may be too many villains going around this season. And the build-up of the Secret Warriors isn’t going in the pace that I had hoped as it still feels like they haven’t gotten that far with it.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs on Tuesdays at 9/8c on ABC.
[Photo credit: Byron Cohen/ABC]
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